Dr. Suzi Tortora

Ed.D., BC-DMT, C.M.A., LCAT, LMHC

Dr. Tortora is a board certified dance movement therapist, Laban Nonverbal Movement Analyst, and specialist in the field of infancy mental health and development. Her expertise in early childhood development and the importance of early relationships inform her psychotherapeutic work across the life span. Dr. Tortora has a private dance movement psychotherapy practice, in New York City
and Cold Spring-on-the-Hudson, New York. Dr. Tortora offers training programs and lectures about her dance therapy and nonverbal video analysis work with infants, children and families, at national and international
professional meetings and universities.

She is on the board of the New York Zero-to-Three Network.

Dr Tortora has been featured on “Good Morning America” and Eyewitness Five-O’Clock News, WABC –TV; Women’s Day magazine; highlighted in
Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker article and book titled
What the Dog Saw and other adventures; has published numerous
papers about her therapeutic and nonverbal communication analysis work with children, parent-infant dyads, and Autism Spectrum Disorders;
has twice been guest editor of the Zero to Three Journal; and has a book with Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company titled The Dancing Dialogue: Using
the Communicative Power of Movement with Young Children.

Dr. Tortora graduated with honors from the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development Tufts University specializing in child development, education and psychology;
received her dance movement therapy masters degree at New York University; and her doctorate with a specialization in infancy/early childhood development, psychology and
education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

She has done extensive study and training in the field of infancy and early childhood research, development, education, communication and intervention through the Zero to
Three Institute and Dr. Stanley Greenspan. She has studied Authentic Movement with Janet Adler
& Body-Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. Dr Tortora is also a certified Laban Movement Analyst, and Kestenberg Movement Profiler.

From the book: What the Dog Saw and other adventuresby Malcolm Gladwell
It was impossible to see Tortora with Eric and not think of Cesar with JonBee: here was the same extraordinary energy and intelligence and personal force marshalled
on behalf of the helpless, the same calm in the face of chaos, and, perhaps most surprising, the same gentleness. When we talk about people with presence, we often
assume that they have a strong personality—that they sweep us all up in their own personal whirlwind. Our model is the Pied Piper, who played his irresistible tune
and every child in Hamelin blindly followed. But Cesar Millan and Suzi Tortora play different tunes, in different situations. And they don't turn their back, and
expect others to follow. Cesar let JonBee lead; Tortora's approaches to Eric were dictated by Eric. Presence is not just versatile; it's also reactive. Certain
people, we say, "command our attention," but the verb is all wrong. There is no commanding, only soliciting.